I represent the first generation who, when we were born, the television was now a permanent fixture in our homes. When I was born people had breakfast with Barbara Walters, dinner with Walter Cronkite, and slept with Johnny Carson.
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Monday, October 07, 2013

This Week in Television History: October 2013 PART II

As always, the further we go back in Hollywood history, the more that fact and legend become intertwined. It's hard to say where the truth really lies.

October 8, 1943

Cornelius Crane (Chevy) Chase is born in New York
City.

Chase began writing material
for comedians in Los Angeles in the early 1970s. After meeting Saturday
Night Live producer Lorne Michaels while standing in line for a movie,
Chase landed a job writing and acting for the program. After a year, he left
the show to launch a movie career. His films include Caddyshack (1980), National
Lampoon's Vacation (1983), and Fletch (1985).

October 9, 1953

Anthony Marcus "Tony"
Shalhoub was born.The actor
of Lebanese
origin is best known for his role as manic-obsessive sleuth Adrian Monk on the TV series Monk. By 1991, one of his first
television roles was as the Italian cabdriver Antonio Scarpacci in the sitcom Wings. Shalhoub was pleasantly
surprised to land the role after having a recurring role in the second season.
Shalhoub affected an Italian accent for the role. In the same time period,
Shalhoub played physicist Dr. Chester Ray Banton in the X-Files second-season episode "Soft
Light." He later returned to series television in 1999, this
time in a lead role on Stark
Raving Mad opposite Neil Patrick Harris.
The show did not attract much of an audience, and NBC cancelled the series in
July 2000.

After a two-year absence from the small screen, Shalhoub starred in another TV
series, Monk,
in which he plays a San Francisco
detective diagnosed with obsessive
compulsive disorder, for USA Network. Michael Richards had been offered the role
when the show was being considered for broadcast on ABC,
a network which would later rerun the first season in 2003, but he eventually
turned it down. Shalhoub was nominated for Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a
Comedy Series seven times consecutively, from 2003-2009, and won in 2003, 2005,
and 2006.

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Pre-ramble

I represent the first generation whom, when we were born, the television was now a permanent fixture in our homes. When I was born people had breakfast with Barbara Walters, dinner with Walter Cronkite, and slept with Johnny Carson.
Read the full "Pre-ramble"